


His Shadow Shouts On a Nightmare Scream

by painted_pain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Maya Angelou - Freeform, Soulless Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painted_pain/pseuds/painted_pain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the <a href="http://spn-reversebang.livejournal.com/">spn_reversebang</a>. <i>Dean twists the key and starts the engine, a growl rolling through the car and up through Sam’s feet. The Impala pulls out of the grit-packed parking lot and they drive away, nothing left behind them except empty swirls of dust and an echo of their conversation.</i> [6x03]</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Shadow Shouts On a Nightmare Scream

**_I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings_** _  
  
The free bird thinks of another breeze  
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees  
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn  
and he names the sky his own.  
  
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams  
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream  
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied  
so he opens his throat to sing  
\-- Maya Angelou_  
  
  
  
~*~  
  
  


“So, you’re saying, what? That – that you’re stronger than me?” Dean looks at Sam, something caught in his eyes, an aching reminder of past hurts digging into the line between his eyebrows, small and yet so expressive if Sam looks properly. He knows how to respond to this, mechanical motions, words dropping from his lips.  
  
“No, no, just saying that,” Sam gives a slight shake of his head, a shrug of his shoulders, brushing things off and away, “we’re different.” He looks at Dean, trying to pick that look in his green eyes apart and doesn’t find anything he can’t deal with. He pats the roof of the Impala, slight shock jarring through his hand and up to his elbow, trivial slap to the skin.   
  
Sam climbs into the car, their words still echoing over the hood of the Impala, the gleaming, sleek black a wide, safe space. A distance between them and it’s just enough and too much and too little. Sam can’t make up his mind and he clenches his jaw, tight and wound and not willing to let anything go or anything in, the bubbling darkness prickling painfully under his skin.  
  
The two doors swing shut, the lingering creak that reverberates through his hands, no pause between the slams. Even with this year between them, some things are too ingrained, too permanent to change. Too in sync, the same rhythm set into their minds and hands and muscles for far too long and Sam brushes the hair from his eyes with the side of his hand, wiping away thoughts that have no purpose being in his head; his steel resolve will not bend to them. There is no place for these errant thoughts. He has no time for them, either.  
  
Dean is silent, slipping into the driver’s seat with a grim set to his face, eyes turned down and away. His hands twitch towards the tape deck and then move away, dropping uselessly before making their way to the key in the ignition. Sam watches, eyes taking in everything because he hasn’t had in a year – no. In a very long time. Dean twists the key and starts the engine, a growl rolling through the car and up through Sam’s feet. The Impala pulls out of the grit-packed parking lot and they drive away, nothing left behind them except empty swirls of dust and an echo of their conversation. It’s all a pointless memory now, anyway. He can’t worry about some worthless miscommunication, there are too many important (deadly, venomous) things weighing the edges of his mind down.  
  
Sam shrugs off his jacket, an awkward grace to his movements because even in the Impala, he is too big, all broad, built shoulders and a towering frame, bent in half. There is a small smile playing about his lips, an unconscious tug at the corners of his mouth, and his stomach rolls. He fits in this seat, well-worn from all the time he has spent here, all his too long limbs and sharp angles, the uncomfortable bend of his body. It’s just his. He fits.  
  
Sam’s fingers fold his jacket quickly, precisely, efficiently, and they ache from gripping the fabric too hard, a slight shake to their otherwise sturdy length. Sam resists the urge to fling it over his shoulder onto the backseat of the Impala, in a short, sharp burst of violence. Instead, he simply reaches his arm back behind him, with folded jacket in hand, opens his fingers and just lets it drop, hand free of its burden and he doesn’t particularly care where it lands. It’s all the same space. He’ll find it.  
  
Dean drives the Impala with care, with tenderness and brings it outside the city, to the open road where it thrives, windows open, Zeppelin blasting, the pair of them rambling on, and the wind rushing by and rushing in, smelling of earth. Except Dean still hasn’t turned on any music and the windows aren’t rolled down, no earthy scent pouring in. The only sound is of the Impala herself and Sam just listens.  
  
She sounds like she always has, so familiar and like something that has been anxiously absent from Sam’s life but nothing he has ever paid any attention to missing. He has spent too long not missing anything. But the engine is a deep, soothing roar that thrums along the outstretched road, a rumbling that rattles into Sam’s bones, reaching in and knitting everything back into place, pulling everything together like he had been flying apart. It’s deeply unsettling because Sam had made  _sure_  he had been centred, had been grounded, every aspect of himself present and accounted for, nothing out of place or unfastened, rattling around inside his skull like clattering loose change. Everything locked down, kept tightly together, neither a hair nor an emotion out of place, that deep well inside him covered, the growls that echo up a constant background noise.  
  
Sam realises, in a brief moment where his eyes catch and lock on the rosary beads hanging from the rear-view mirror, he missed this, the car and the road and his brother at the wheel. Missed it in a way he hadn’t let himself be aware off. There was too much to deal with and he hadn’t had the time to dwell, too focused on anything else. He is fine just as he was; he doesn’t really need anything like this, doesn’t need the familiarity of the Impala or its sounds, the soundtrack of his childhood, of those five years when he and his brother had been together again, history crammed into the grooves of the tires and the rattle of the cassette tapes in the glove box that his knees keep jarring up against. Sam blinks, once, twice, and turns his head to look out the window into the darkening sky, eyes catching on the passing trees and then darting ahead because looking in the other direction makes him too uncomfortable. Even though something screams inside him to just glance, just to make sure everything is still the way it was before. But Sam knows it isn’t and he taps the fingers of his right hand against the sharp bend of his right knee.  
  
The leather of the seat beneath him creaks as he shifts and he is disturbed by his thoughts, not liking how they appear to slip under and out of his tight control. That no matter how hard he tries to rein these thoughts in, they slip through his grasp and they keep dancing along the dashboard and over to Dean’s hands shifting and gripping the wheel, flickering up to the knot of tension in Dean’s jaw.  
  
Focusing on how those eyes don’t waver from the road, how they won’t even look over, no hesitant, jumping glance that doesn’t dare linger the way Sam’s eyes seem to want to. Dean is waiting for Sam to say something. Or rather, Dean is waiting for Sam to say  _everything._  To explain. To open up. As if waiting and giving him the space and acceptance inside the body of this car, will release something within Sam and he will feel comfortable to speak. But Sam is fine. He will keep telling Dean because it’s the truth, same as it was when the words passed through the air over the roof of the Impala.   
  
But it’s clear in all the ways Dean doesn’t realise he’s telegraphing to Sam, in the stillness of his body, the restlessness in his hands, the rigidity of his face, that he doesn’t believe Sam. Yet again, his big brother doesn’t believe him. Something deep inside him squeezes a bit too tight and shudders coldly, leaking ice into the pit of his stomach, and Sam doesn’t understand, underneath the outward calm of his mind, how things keep shifting and realigning without his approval. Without letting him know or giving him any say. He frowns, eyebrows drawing together in the slightest of creases, feeling the pull and shifting of the muscles on his face and ignores it all.   
  
Instead, he shifts his focus from inward to outward, eyes picking up the movement of the world outside his window, refusing to linger on why things keep surfacing, denying he knows the reason, when of course, buried beneath his calm, he does, deep, deep down, hidden silently at the bottom of a well, secreted at the base of a wall where the other side keeps things at bay, the heat and pain and velvet spoken words --   
  
Sam gaze skitters across the Impala, across the dashboard, across the gap between him and his brother and across his hands, clenched into fists on top of his thighs and he is mutely startled to find that his fingernails are digging into the soft, vulnerable flesh of his palm. He uncurls them slowly and smoothes out the curved, half-moon indents with the calloused pads of his fingers, intent on tracking the different textures of his own skin. He becomes absorbed in the contrast between the hardened skin of his fingers and knuckles and the exposed, delicate skin on his palms and inner wrists. He finds that contrast distinctly unpleasant, a weakness he had previously not been aware of, that he hadn’t even noticed.  
  
He shifts his focus again, an itching urge to catalogue his environment, to become hyper-vigilant, a desperate need to know exactly what is going on. Sam eyes takes in the view from his passenger seat window and he sees an even darker sky, littered with twinkling stars and a stray, errant thought skitters unwelcomed across his mind, a wondering idea about whether or not Heaven is actually  _up_ , up there amongst those very same stars or if it’s anywhere and everywhere. If Cas is marshalling the ranks on fluffy, white clouds and there is a petulant edge to the thought. Sam scowls, an unconscious twitch that in this moment he resents, and he takes in the trees instead, flashing green and various stages of brown and red and yellow.   
  
It’s so silent and still, a hush fallen over the landscape and the Impala has been sucked into it, a silence so complete it’s almost reverent, interrupted only by rhythmic rumble of the car’s engine. No music can be heard blaring from speakers, no thumping bass or wailing guitars, no voice singing along tunelessly. It’s so empty and Sam can feel it echo hollowly in his chest.  
  
He shifts around in his seat again and this time, his slight movement catches Dean’s attention, green eyes flickering over to Sam and away, then back again. Each glance is fleeting but Sam doesn’t have it in him to be frustrated or annoyed by it - - after a year, it feels so new, feels like something to be grateful for. But he refuses to meet those eyes, something harsh and implacable and cruel and growling inside him not letting him. His fingers twitch restlessly against his jeans and he settles further back into the embrace of the leather. He waits because he knows what’s coming. Sam knows Dean and it has always been that simple.  
  
“Sam.” The name is drawn out, slowly, cautiously, as if Sam is traumatised, just as willing or likely to lash out as to talk. It’s Dean’s ‘we are going to have a serious conversation or I will punch you’ voice. It’s a surreal dichotomy, one of the many that make up his big brother. Sam tries to squash the loud snort of disbelief that threatens to spill over his tightened lips, knowing it will serve no purpose but to piss Dean off, but there is something more in his brother’s voice that Sam shies away from, so he snorts in disbelief anyway, preferring a tone of anger than one of understanding or sympathy.   
  
The glare Dean shoots him tells Sam in many different ways just how much that snort was not appreciated and Sam doesn’t want to care, won’t let himself care, locking himself back up tight.  
  
“Dean,” he throws back, mockingly, looking back over at Dean, a smirk breaking free and dancing across his features.   
  
Dean sighs, a heavy, weighed down sound and Sam doesn’t want to hear it. So suddenly, he is sick of this silence and Dean’s waiting, everything he has been feeling spinning together into fine lines of anger, zinging through him and leaving him fired up, adrenaline pumping, ready to pull the trigger of the gun he does not have in his hands.   
  
“Sam,” Dean says again, “just, could you be honest with me? Can you let me know what’s going on in that freakish head of yours?” He throws Sam his own smirk, paper-thin and wavering. Sam wants to wipe that look away, either kill it or make it shine, splatter it across the cheekbones on Dean’s face or give it a reason to be real and strong and so like the brother he left behind. Left above, where grass grows and the sun shines.  
  
Instead, he takes his anger and sharpens it into a delicate point, sharp enough to make Dean bleed without even noticing he’d been cut. He tests the weight of it in his mind, notes how much damage it could cause, and then quietly tucks it away for another time when he can use it and kill some evil thing or destroy someone who truly deserves it.   
  
“Yeah, Dean,” Sam replies, calm and sincere and steady, “you know I will.” And Dean just looks at him, takes his eyes off the road, hands never straying from ten and two o’clock, always too damn good at driving like a hunter, and just  _looks_  at his baby brother, big green eyes spelling out ‘yeah, right’ in large, bright, obvious lettering. Sam imagines he can see a question mark amongst the freckles scattered across Dean’s face and he looks right back and says, “Dean, I mean it, I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m not there, I’m here. I’m out.”  
Dean opens his mouth to say something and Sam blocks him off, throwing a hand up to stop him speaking, needing him to believe that he’s telling the truth because he really is. The truth that echoes in his head every day, sometimes muttered, sometimes screamed and he’s okay. Sam has more important things to do, demands that have to be met, the dark twisted thing clawing through him that must be placated.  
  
But Sam is dealing, everything locked up and wound tight, key lost forever and Dean doesn’t need to know any of that.  
  
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to swap stories,” and his fingers clench in minute twitches because hearing Dean talk about Hell is something he doesn’t want to contemplate, that idea stretching too tight over the failures of his past, the things he failed to do, the people -- _person_  -- he failed to save. Sam’s knee jumps up and down in time with the rumble of the Impala and he catches Dean’s glance downwards. He presses his palms flat against his knees and stills and continues on, making sure Dean is looking back at him. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change.  
  
“Trust me, Dean. I am fine.” He stresses each word, pronounces them slow and distinct, eyes unblinking and his face wide open. It’s Sam’s turn to wait for Dean and he is so, so still.  
  
“Okay, Sam. Okay.” Words said in a tone overflowing with resignation, leaving his mouth ragged and tired, and Sam knows he will ask again. It doesn’t matter. Sam knows what to say.  
  
And Dean’s gaze is back on the road now, with the same focus he’d looked at Sam with, right hand reaching over to turn on the tape deck, Zeppelin filtering through the speakers and wrapping itself around Sam’s heart.  
  
Not once had the car wavered in its direction.  
  
  
~*~  
  
  
Sam keeps his gaze on the scenery flying by, eyes picking up all these little obscure details: a bright red tractor, a rotting barn, stacks of hay, clumps of dead trees, the occasional hanging body of a scarecrow. He turns them over in his mind, giving meaning to each thing that they do not have, connecting them in obtuse ways, and then throwing them away, scattering them to the wind, leaving them shattered on the road behind him. It keeps his mind busy and active, keeps things pressed down and tucked away, fingers tapping along to the music, shoulders hunched.   
  
Dean keeps looking over at him now and he can feel Dean’s gaze sweeping across him, heavy with so many things left unsaid and Sam isn’t going to turn away from the window; he refuses to acknowledge how hunted he feels. His fingers pick up speed and Sam creates his own rhythm beating across his thighs, fingers drumming hard and fast, pressure felt through his jeans and against his skin. He looks over and Dean looks away. They can’t hold each other’s gazes and Sam hadn’t anticipated that, hadn’t really thought outside of the idea that Dean was safe, he had a family, he was out.   
  
Dean had been safe and now he’s not, pulled back into this dark life, where nothing is what it seems now. Something twists inside Sam and strains against his almost implacable hold, barbed teeth ripping furiously. ‘Not yet,’ Sam soothes, ‘not yet.’  
  
Not ever, Sam thinks almost frantically, feverishly, but he knows that will never be an option. There are smooth words ringing in his head, splintered shards digging in and they are woven with venom and death, tying Sam to a place he aches to forget. He pushes his teeth into his bottom lips, bites down hard until he can feel the pain zinging through him, a distraction and a relief, but stops short of drawing blood.  
  
Time passes by, too much distance between each minute and Sam measures it out with the beat of his own heart, the pulse of the music. He watches as the sky turns darker and darker, watches as the shadows stretch out and spill all over the road, spiked claws reaching for the wheels of the Impala and barely missing.  
  
And just like that, as he watches the next shadow lurch forward and miss, Sam is sick of this car, all the memories stuffed inside it, not enough room left to fit anything else in except their history and their baggage, air drawn tight and thin. He controls his breathing, keeps each breath low and even, concentrates on this simple movement, this effortless exchange, eyes focused straight ahead.  
  
“Dean.”  
  
Dean jerks minutely at the sound of his name filling the space between them and Sam can see him out of the corner of his eye swallow reflexively, sees the quick clench of his teeth and the annoyed press of his lips. Sam doesn’t give him a chance to say anything, just puts the order out there.  
  
“Next time we see a diner, we’re stopping.”  
  
Dean doesn’t even argue even though Sam can see out of the corner of his eye that he looks pissed, he just presses his lips tighter together, the pink bleeding to white and nods once jerkily before saying in steady voice, “Sure thing, Sam.” He pauses, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel, as if building up to something, and then continues. “I could eat.” Quick flash of a pasted on grin and Sam finds himself lifting one corner of his mouth up in response, all those years making it instinctual. A muscle memory.   
  
“Man, I gotta tell you, Lisa is an awesome cook but nothing quite beats grabbing a burger from the local diner.” And Dean is looking at Sam now, that smile half-real, only straining slightly, and he can see it for what it is -- a truce.   
  
  
~*~  
  
  
The diner they stumble across twenty minutes of semi-comfortable silence later is just like every other diner Sam has ever been in -- cheap vinyl seats scuffed and creaking, Formica tables cracked and old, the waitress looking tired and yet distantly cheerful. Even the smell is the same, grease staining the air. Sam wants to hate it, the normalcy of it, but the grin on Dean’s face holds that want back and wipes it clean, rough edges of Sam’s mind smoothed over for the time being.   
  
He follows Dean, one step behind his older brother, and slides into the booth opposite the door a beat after him. It would be more efficient if they both sat facing the door, that instinct to be aware of every entrance and exit straining to be heard but Sam carefully concedes to the sideways glance Dean gives him, almost a warning or a plea. He catalogues the quick darting glance towards the doors, Dean counting every person in the small diner and Sam settles back into the vinyl covered seat, tapping his fingers on the table; an acknowledgement and Dean relaxes almost imperceptibly.   
  
Sam can’t really be surprised at how much Dean has not forgotten, at how quickly he slips back into his protective older brother role, making sure he’s between Sam and the rest of the world. The flare of irritated fondness that used to follow such gestures is only a memory and echoes hollowly inside Sam’s chest. He shakes his head, flicking his hair out of his eyes and off his forehead, presses his fingers down into the smooth surface of the table beneath them, watches the tips turn white with the pressure.   
  
Dean coughs, a choked sound, almost a sob, that gets cut off early and when Sam looks up, Dean gives him a strange smile, crooked and sitting wrong.  
  
“Haven’t been in a place like this for,” he pauses, sucks in a breathe and continues, “for a while.” The words are an offering, an explanation, and Sam knows they aren’t said willingly, pulled from behind Dean’s teeth and dropped like stones into the waiting silence.  
  
“I know.” A pause and Dean looks at him, almost expectantly, his eyes focused on Sam’s chin, fingers of his left hand drumming on the table, right hand grasping the menu too tight. Sam still notices everything Dean does, the coiled tension in his shoulders, the reluctant set to his mouth but he isn’t sure what to do with that information, how to react anymore. He sighs, long drawn out breath, pushes those thoughts away, focuses on the walls he’s built so carefully, and gives Dean the words he wants.  
  
“I’m sorry, Dean. I really am.” They ring hollowly in Sam’s chest and he keeps pressing the pads of his fingers into the Formica, imagining for one exhilarating moment what it would take to crack it.  
  
“Yeah, Sammy, I know.” And then shake, shrug, grunt, Dean breaks away and looks down at the menu, not really seeing it, brushing away this strained moment between them, pretending it didn’t happen. Sam’s mouth quirks, edge digging uncomfortably into the stiffness of his cheek, and he thinks some things just won’t ever change.  
  
The waitress comes over then, the heels of her shoes making a muffled click-clacking noise against the dirty linoleum floor, and her smile is very bright and only slightly sincere. Sam assumes she’s only half way through an eight-hour shift and that her feet hurt, notices the way she shifts her weight from one foot to the other as if to relieve the pressure. Her outfit is red and she is wearing shoes to match, her lips painted a darker hue of red. It reminds Sam of blood, of a time when he kissed with his mouth smeared with it and he straightens his shoulders, forces his palms flat, smoothing out his face and listens impassively as Dean orders a bacon cheeseburger with that smirk on his face, dimmed but still there. When the waitress turns her face to Sam, he looks over her shoulder and orders a cobb salad, voice calm and steady when all he wants is something he doesn’t think about.  
  
She leaves, that click-clack sound following her and Sam lets his gaze roam over the diner, checking for potential threats, eyes coming back to rest on the waitress and her too-red mouth. He estimates how long it will take to run to the door, hunter instinct kicking in and adrenaline spiking, body tensing. He startles at the kick to his shins, pain throbbing along his nerves and shoots a baffled look at his brother.  
  
“Sam, stop casing the joint. There isn’t anything here.” Exasperation coats Dean’s features, desperation and worry lurking just behind. “I get that you’re this hunting machine, dude, being out in the wild, the whole ‘rough around the edges thing’,” Dean’s voice turns mocking for a split second and the roughness in his voice, the fire in his eyes, tells Sam that Dean is angry, spitting nails angry and something else he can’t figure out. Dean continues on saying, ”But stop expecting there to be a hunt or a freaking monster around every corner. Do you expect, what, Melissa to –“  
  
“Who?” Sam interrupts. Dean looks at him strangely, like Sam’s missing something important, like Dean isn’t quite sure who this person is sitting in front of him, worry spreading out between them and turning the air sour.  
  
“Our waitress, Melissa. Who stood right there, in front of us, and introduced herself?  _That_  Melissa.”   
  
Sam nods, tapping his fingers on the table, counting out a steady beat, eyes swinging back to watch the waitress -- ‘Melissa,’ Sam forces himself to think -- watches Melissa make her way around the diner, hands full of dirty plates. “What about her?”  
  
“Sam, she’s not a vampire or a shapeshifter or a fucking succubus or whatever else you’re thinking she is. So stop looking at her like she’s something you want to hunt down and kill.” Dean pauses and Sam glances at him out of the corner of his eye, watches as his brother purses his lips in an angry line. His eyes stare at Sam, suddenly open and he can see fear simmering in there, struggling against the hold Dean has on it, aching to burst free.   
  
“What the hell is up with you?” And he is glaring at Sam, anger so obvious, splashed across the lines of his face, the smoothness of his own face a marked contrast, and Sam, tapping the surface of the table with one finger in an indiscernible beat, replies in a low voice.  
  
“Even if I say nothing, you’re not going to believe me, Dean. You won’t. Or you can’t.” He swings his gaze back to Dean, lets it settle heavily between them. “But it’s the truth. I don’t know what else to tell you.”   
  
Moments slide by, slipping through the air, sweet and slow like molasses. Sam counts the seconds with the tapping of his finger, watches it wear down something in Dean’s eyes until he just sighs, looks down and away, anger draining from his face, nestling into the deep recess where Dean keeps it all bottled up and then he slumps back into his seat, red vinyl creaking underneath him.  
  
“Okay, Sammy. Okay.” And Sam knows by that tone of voice that he has won this round but Dean will ask again and again and again with weighted words and heavy eyes until all those walls Sam had carefully constructed will tumble under the pressure and the darkness that has it’s claws in his chest will slither out and infect the air around him --  
  
But today, he is fine and Dean is fine, defeated slouch to his shoulders, lines of pain around his eyes and when the food arrives, delivered from the hands of Melissa with the blood red mouth that makes Sam want things he can’t permit himself to have, they eat, lost in the old familiar rhythm that echoes deep inside Sam, the clink of the forks pinging softly in his ears.   
  
He hates it.  
  
  
~*~  
  
  
Dean says he’ll pay with an offended glare at Sam’s out-stretched hand offering bills and then reaches into his back pocket. Dean frowns, and then sighs, when he takes the money out of his wallet. It’s a new one, not the old weathered one that had brown leather so softened with age that it felt as smooth as butter, with a thread pattern on it that had made Sam pick it out for him. This one is black and shiny and expensive; a replacement. He doesn’t like it, doesn’t like the way his head throbs in a dull ache, the way his hands clench by his side. Sam walks out the diner door, bell tinkling above his head in a way that makes him want to rip it from the frame, catch his nails in the wood until they bleed. Instead he walks over to the Impala, pats her hood in an unconscious gesture that he refuses to censor and waits by the passenger seat, cold wind whipping through him, tugging mercilessly at his t-shirt. Sam looks away from the diner, leaning against the side of the Impala, and faces the other side of the road, where a great vast nothingness, bleak and dark and sinister, caresses his sight until he feels dizzy with it, numbed.   
  
Dean clears his throat behind him and when Sam spins around too fast on his feet, he catches him rubbing a hand across the back of his neck and bringing it around to repeat the same action across his mouth and chin. Sam has watched this ritual of embarrassment, of defeated desperation more times than he can count, a flood of flickering memories sliding around in his mind’s eye. He ignores them and the dissatisfied growl that sets an ache deep in his bones.  
  
“So, uh,” Dean starts to say and then stops, clears his throat again and plasters on a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I guess it’s just you, me, my baby and the road tonight, Sammy, I haven’t got enough for a room at a motel. You’re gonna have to sleep in the backseat or wherever. Just like old times, huh?” And his smile slips a little, cracks around the edges, a tremor ghosting along with the words that stumble from Dean’s mouth. Sam wants to push all those words back inside, shove them down Dean’s throat until he chokes on them. But he steps forward and says in an earnest voice, “I have enough, Dean. I’ll pay. It’s fine.”  
  
“Nah. I kinda -- I just want to drive tonight, Sammy. I haven’t done that in a while and you, y’know, you’re here now, so.” There is honesty, a truth that Dean rarely ever reveals without being forced too. Sam had known that his brother had changed, shrunk and grown and twisted around Sam’s absence but this is something that coils inside Sam, barbed wire and numbed emptiness, a knowledge cold and impossible; he doesn’t know his brother anymore.   
  
Sam gives Dean a half smile, gets one in return and then steps forward again, level with him and knocks his shoulder against Dean’s, a startled laugh flowing from his lips into the air, more breath than sound. Sam gives him a smile, a shy thing that strains across his lips. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, gets lost on the way there, caught up in unfamiliar territory. Dean doesn’t notice, just smiles back, a wide thing that makes him look young, too young, like a little boy so Sam can believe it’s real.   
  
Dean shoves Sam away, hands reaching up to his shoulders and pushing backwards towards the passenger door, says in the lightest voice Sam has ever heard, ”Get in the car, asswipe.”   
  
Sam doesn’t roll his eyes. He stares at his brother as he turns and walks around the Impala. There is a rolling sensation clogging Sam up, oil and water slicking his insides up and Sam opens his mouth, lets the expected words out.  
  
“Shut up, dickwad.”  
  
He knows there are other words that would fit better but that was before and Sam carefully places his hand on the handle of the door, cold metal cooling his palm and he wishes for ice, to be frozen and consistent. He had been stable and steady, no rolling, endless ocean inside him, nor the acute awareness of how he had been  _before_. But now Dean is back, beside him, his annoying older brother with the car that holds the pattern to his life and Sam has nothing constant anymore.   
  
A slick purr slides up Sam’s throat and into the back of his head, settles down and digs in deep claws. He can taste ashes in his mouth. Well, some things are constant.  
  
Sam opens the door and slips into the seat, leather encasing him once again and the sensation is all at once too comforting and too suffocating. He closes the door, creak and groan and slam, echoes the same noises that the other door makes, one step behind Dean. Sam smoothes his hands over his thighs, rubbing at the denim until the skin of his palms feels fuzzy and strange. Dean starts the car with an emphatic roar and pulls out onto the empty road with a spin of the steering wheel, back end of the Impala swinging out; a touch of flair that Dean laughs at and Sam has to respond with a fond, “Asshole.” He gets a smirk in return, this bright happy thing that runs across Dean’s face and Sam twists his mouth up and looks away. He notices his right cuff has fallen down to his wrist and frowns. Sam slowly and meticulously folds it back, once, twice, judges the length against his left and folds a third time, tucks his fingers under the fold to get rid of any creases.  
  
Several long minutes pass, an easier silence between them now, the darkness outside the window reaching in, before the strains of guitar chords fill the air, a soft pitter-patter tumbling up into Sam’s eardrums, the fingers of Dean’s left hand tapping out the same rhythm on the steering wheel and Sam closes his eyes, suddenly so tired he could melt into the seat beneath him.  
  
 _”The leaves are falling all around, time I was on my way,  
Thanks to you I’m much obliged, such a pleasant stay,  
But now it’s time for me to go -- ”_  
  
Sam forces his eyes open, slow sweep of eyelids, turns to look at Dean and says in a deadpan voice, his voice so steady, “Keep on keepin’ on.”   
  
Dean chokes and looks right back, light dancing in his eyes as he says in exactly the same tone, “Hell yeah, Sammy.” His lips twitch and the lines on his face have been erased, smooth skin weighed down by nothing. Sam likes this look on his brother, it means Sam is doing this right, ticking time over and sliding back into the place where he once was. Dean has to look away then and huffs out a laugh and Sam sinks down, tips his head back onto that groove he has worn out after so many years and drifts inside the familiar sound of Led Zeppelin and his brother humming along. It pours over him in waves and Sam lets it, can let it because there are no claws, no oily darkness.   
  
“Dude, get in the backseat. Your sasquatch ass will thank you for it.” Dean voice is too soft and brushes against Sam too gently, not enough sarcasm and mocking in it. Sam swallows hollowly and opens his eyes, blinking heavily. He turns his head around to look at the back seat, catching a glimpse of his folded up jacket in a heap on the floor.   
  
“Dean, I am not climbing over the backseat so would you stop the car?”   
  
Dean rolls his eyes but Sam can see the tenderness caught in his crow’s feet and he pulls over, letting the engine idle, the low thrum vibrating through Sam. He opens the door and clambers out, limbs stiff and the icy night air claws into his lungs. Sam gulps in breath after breath, caught up in this idea that maybe the freezing cold will smother the hellfire itching at the base of his skull. The wind whips his hair about his face and he slams the door before Dean can yell at him like Sam knows he wants to.   
  
He pauses for a few moments, just letting the whirling wind tug mercilessly at his shirt and push into him. Sam wants to be numb, a block of chipped ice, hoarfrost whiting the ends of his hair and the tips of his eyelashes. He wants to be so cold that no fire can ever burn him again, can never lick against the edges of his lungs and curl in. Something snarls viciously deep inside him and then Sam can hear Dean thump one of his hands against the steering wheel. He gets in the car, pulls open the door and slides in cleanly.  
  
“Sam, what the hell were you doing out there? Jerking off?” Dean flings the words at him, fast and furious and mocking, his eyebrows drawn up high on his forehead in disbelief but Sam can hear the concern buried beneath all that, the worry and fear. He can see small sparks of that ever-simmering anger flaring briefly in his eyes. Perhaps Dean will always carry this anger in him, never speak of it; never speak of how much Dean hates Sam for leaving him behind. Dean will never say it but Sam will always see it. He moves over on the backseat until he’s behind Dean so Dean can’t look at him without craning his neck too far around. And then Sam opens his mouth and deflects, the words tumbling out without Sam even thinking about them. Being around his brother does that.  
  
“Yes, Dean, I was jerking off. You’re just pissed because you can’t get it up as fast as me, old man.”   
  
Dean huffs a breath, not quite a laugh, and says, “Dick,” with too much fondness in the tone. Sam turns his head away to look out the window into the deep black darkness beyond. He’s shivering slightly as Dean pulls the car away from the side of the road, goose bumps racing across his skin. Sam feel stretched too thin over his bones, too much and not enough wrapped up inside him, thoughts rolling to places Sam doesn’t want them to go. Everything is spinning out of his steel control and he despises it. So Sam grabs his jacket, pulls it over his shoulders and forces himself to sleep, blocking everything out and letting the blackness of unconsciousness take him.  
  
  
~*~  
  
  
Sam wakes with a start to the slam of one of the doors of the Impala, his body slumped over on its side, his jacket in a clump around his chest and Sam jerks his head up when he hears the door beside him open. He watches in the dark muted with moonlight, watches with wary half-lidded eyes, as Dean climbs into the seat beside him, sheepish fear and embarrassment written across his face, teeth digging into his bottom lip. But there is pain and defeat and devastation there too, cut into his face so deeply they’ll never heal. Dean closes the door a lot more gently this time and doesn’t look at Sam, stares straight ahead and just shrugs his jacket off and folds it up into an impromptu pillow to stuff behind his head. He leans back into it and closes his eyes, arms crossed across his chest.   
  
“You good, Sammy?” Dean whispers in the quiet, the engine ticking as it cools down. His voice is tight and controlled, so steady, not letting anything slip out but Sam can see it in the corners of his mouth, the deep-set furrow between his eyebrows -- the anxiety and the remembered loss that is never far away.  
  
“Yeah, Dean.” Sam says the words with the right inflection, caring, earnest. He keeps looking at Dean and as the moments pass by, cracks appear in Dean’s forced calmness, rugged edges cutting into the smoothness of his face. His arms grab at his chest, holding it all together, breathes drawn from his lips raggedly, and Sam watches with a strange wonder as his older brother slowly falls apart. There is a beauty to it, the slowness, the completeness, how internal it is and yet how Sam can see it written all over his face, carved into the hollow of his cheeks, etched into the line around his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Wetness glistens in the moonlight, silver sliding down Dean’s cheekbone.  
  
“Sam.” The word is pushed out and echoes starkly in the silence between them, hollowed of all feeling because every emotion is trapped inside Dean, locked down by him, key tossed away. Sam did learn from the best.  
  
And then it’s clear what Sam must do, pieces slotting together, body moving of its own accord, everything filling Sam up and choking him with it -- the stuffed silence, the locked down pain in Dean’s face, the hellfire burning itself through Sam’s heart -- and he leans forward, shifts his body around. Sam pushes himself into Dean’s space, settles his head in Dean’s lap, tucked into his stomach, an echo of so many years ago when he was so much younger, innocent and naive and thought Dean could protect him, when he would cuddle into his big brother and feel safe, comforted through miles and miles of yet another move, tripping through numerous countrysides.   
  
And while Sam might not know this new Dean, domesticated and soft, muted, he does know the irrefutable truth of who Dean is when Sam is around, a big brother tied to his little brother. Just like Sam knows who he is when Dean is right there, tense muscles beneath Sam’s cheek, when Dean sits in the driver’s seat with his hands on the steering wheel. Without those hands, Sam doesn’t know where he is going, directionless, aimless. He shudders softly, lost beneath the weight of such thoughts, and closes his eyes, buries himself beneath the claw marks in his lungs and head and breathes.  
  
“I’m here, Dean,” Sam says in a hoarse whisper, brings a hand up to grip just above Dean’s left knee. He swallows thickly, presses his face hard into the muscle of Dean’s thigh, muffling his words. “I’m here.” And it’s another echo and it rips into him, memories screaming in his head, shrieking, tearing, and Dean shakes under his hand, under his mouth, makes a soft sobbing sound, choked and muffled and it dies before it can truly leave Dean’s mouth.  
  
A warm, heavy arm snakes around Sam’s shoulder, weighs him down and Sam can’t help it, sense memory flooding him, making him feel safe, protected. He is vulnerable but so is Dean. They are so broken, jagged pieces that fit together because they must. Because if they don’t, they will shatter into pieces and be scattered to the winds.  
  
“Missed you, Sammy,” Dean croaks out, muffled words floating above Sam’s head, circling around and alighting something soft inside Sam’s chest, a deep resonance. Sam lets Dean have this quiet moment of comfort because he knows, as the thing burrowed inside him claws and growls, it’s the only time he’s going to be able to have it, the heat of Hell coming ever closer, barbed wire and twisted deals choking Sam. He breathes in, blocks all those memories out, breathes the slow, even breathes of someone deeply asleep, forcing his mind to empty and to fill himself with the sensation of cold, of ice, smooth and clean. He feels the moments slip by in time to Dean rubbing his thumb over and over again of the skin bare just beneath the cuff of his shirt at the bend of his elbow.   
  
Eventually, Sam slides back into a fitful sleep, surrounded by Dean and his hypnotising touch, the comfort and familiarity. Sam lets himself have this moment of comfort too, of feeling safe, hoards it like a precious thing, stows it away and locks it up tight, hoping against hope that it will keep him warm, knowing that soon everything is going to go to hell, going to break and splinter and fall apart.   
  
He sinks deep into that dark place secreted behind the wall, at the bottom of the well, and Sam’s dreams are nightmarish. They are full of blood and smoke and screams, a saturated, vibrant red splattered across walls made of yellow bone and a knife in his hands, a cowering figure shivering in front of him, so weak and human with long, long limbs, tanned skin dirtied, with shaggy brown hair. His imploring slanted hazel eyes make Sam sneer in disgust. And then the nightmare shifts, stretches, bends, and refocuses. He dreams of an oily white light that slithers into him, wreathing him in an unholy fire, power thrumming through him sickly sweet, making him unbreakable, untouchable. Sam faces a mirror, lifts a hand to trace the cracks that splinter through it, distorting his reflection.  
  
 _No!_  The word is broken, rough and ragged, fracturing with emotion.  _Sammy, no._  And betrayal is etched into every sound, every vowel. Sam smiles an empty smile that splits his face too wide, too open, watching his reflection echo it a second late, the hesitant tug. He taps a finger against it and then slowly, lovingly, traces the curve of it. Sam turns to face those desperate pleas that echo behind him, face now so smooth and impassive and not his. He steps forward, walks toward the sobbing chained figure. Sam slowly reaches a hand up to gently wipe away the tears that fall down Dean’s beautiful broken face.  
  
Sam jerks awake, panting, face sweat-slicked, heart thundering and the darkness stretching itself languidly in the back of his throat, purring with satisfaction. His head is still in Dean’s lap, warm and safe, an arm draped across Sam’s shoulders, just the right side of heavy. Sam lies there, waits for his heart beat to slow down, and watches the dawn unfurl itself across the sky through the windows of the Impala. He keeps his hand on Dean’s knee, the simple reassurance there making him choke.  
  
Dean can’t protect him from this, from what’s to come.   
  
Dean can’t protect Sam from himself.


End file.
